All the Spaces in Between
by cloverhand
Summary: A collection of Willow/Oz short fics, missing scenes, episode tags, future fics, and the like, all featuring Willow and Oz. Non-linear and generally unrelated, but all written for the same writing challenge, and all Willow/Oz, with other characters and pairings making appearances.
1. Southern California Internationalism

First installment in a series of Willow/Oz short one-shot fics, missing scenes, episode tags, and future fics. This series will consist only of the weekly stories I write for the weekly writing prompt community **Taming the Muse** on Livejournal, so expect roughly weekly updates. The goal of the comm is to write a story for the weekly prompt as many weeks in a row, so the first week I fail to fill the prompt, I'll end this series and start over, with a new pairing (and possibly in a new fandom.) That being said, I hope to be bringing you weekly Willow/Oz for a long time! I hope you enjoy the series!

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Southern California Internationalism

Prompt: Week 348- Papaya

Summary: Willow's going to UC Sunnydale for the next four years, and she wishes she could see the world outside of Sunnydale borders. Oz does his best to help out. This is set during episode 3x19, "Choices," just after Willow is rescued from the Mayor and Faith. Spoilers and fluff abound.

A/N: UC Sunnydale never had an explicitly stated mascot, so, considering that UC San Francisco's mascot is the banana slug, I think we can all suspend our disbelief and accept that UC Sunnydale's mascot could be the spider monkeys.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or concepts used in this non-profit transformative work, nor do I claim to own them or profit in any way.

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**Southern California Internationalism**

Willow could feel Oz's heart beating below her ear, comforting in its stability. Just hours ago she'd been held captive, and now, twined around Oz in the safety of her bedroom, the terrified rush of adrenaline was just starting to wear off. She felt safe, wrapped in a blanket and tucked against Oz, but she couldn't forget the feel of Faith's hands wrapped around her arms, cold knife brushing against her neck, and every time she closed her eyes, the Mayor's cold smile made her shiver in fear all over again. It had been the most terrifying night of her life, and she hadn't slept since she got home, too busy turning thoughts over in her mind. She had too much to think about, and there were so many things she wasn't sure of, still. But, after the night she'd had, there were some things she was suddenly, completely certain about.

"I'm going to UC Sunnydale," Willow announced with no warning, sitting up to look down at Oz anxiously. He pushed himself up more slowly than she had, taking his time to turn her words over in his head as he sat up on his girlfriend's bed.

"I see," Oz murmured, running his fingers down her arm, from shoulder to palm, and winding their hands together.

"Do you think I'm making the right choice?" Willow asked softly, looking down at their clasped hands. She imagined that she could see their pulses beating in their wrists, blood thumping in time with their heartbeats, keeping time as her world spun madly on. It seemed like everything was maddeningly crazy, and with so many things (the Ascension, college, Faith, graduation, her parents) weighing her down as if she carried the world on her back, it was reassuring to think the tempos of their pulses lined up, keeping a beat steadier and sturdier than the uncertain ground she stood upon.

"Hard to say," Oz shrugged, absently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and grazing the planes of her forehead and cheek with his fingertips. Oz's skin was warm, as if he'd been raising his hands up to the sun, instead of hiding beside her in her bedroom, tucked away from the night and from Faith and from any sort of monster. Everywhere his warm hands brushed against her skin, Willow felt warmer too, and she wished she could take that warmth and hold it inside, to heat up the places Oz couldn't reach. "Why are you making it?"

"I think I need to stay here, on the Hellmouth," Willow answered slowly, as if she was holding each word in her mouth for half a beat longer, to see how each word tasted on her tongue. "Buffy needs us, you know, and I can't leave her alone here. She needs her friends, so I need to stay.

"And," another weighty pause, laden down with all of the things Willow couldn't put into words easily. She wished she could learn how to speak the way Oz did, communicating sentences in just words, telling stories with silences, but she was given to words the way he was to weighty silences, and she could say far more when she was tripping over syllables and tying her tongue around itself. Words were important, were heavy, careful things, and right now, trying to put anxious, fragile feelings into speech, Willow felt as if she were trying to glue the pieces of a shattered glass back together, trying to fit each piece into just the right place, gently, so as not to nudge any of the others out of alignment. "And I want to stay, because, I'm just starting to get a hang of magic. I'm not very good yet, but I really think I could be, Oz. I could be really good, but that means staying here.

"This is really important, protecting Sunnydale, and I don't know if I can walk away from it. I want to help people, Oz, and this is the best way I know how. It's dangerous and really scary, but somebody has to do it, and I think I have to be one of those somebodies."

"Sounds like your mind's made up," Oz answered blandly, but when he looked at Willow, his eyes were warm and happy. "And it sounds like you made the right choice for you."

"What about you?" Willow asked, with a sudden anxious tremor building in her stomach and shooting out to tug at her fingers and toes. "You never told me what you had decided for next fall."

"I wanted you to make up your own mind, without worrying about me," Oz smiled, squeezing her hand in his and rubbing his thumb against its back. "But it turns out we made the same choice, which is kind of funny."

"You mean?"

"UC Sunnydale, Class of 2003," Oz said, giving her a funny little half smile that made her blood run just a little warmer and made her fingers tingle where they touched his. "Go UCS Spider Monkeys."

"Oz, are you just…?"

"Nah, this isn't because of you," Oz told her, slipping his hand under her chin when she blushed at her assumption, and lifting her chin to make eye contact. "Though I won't lie, I applied to a number of schools right by Ivies, just in case you ended up leaving, but I can't leave Sunnydale much more than you can. I've got a cage and people with tranquilizer guns here. I wouldn't have been able to leave that to follow you to Boston, even if you had chosen Harvard."

"Okay," Willow smiled goofily, a little bit more in love with Oz after his confession. "I'm glad. I like being near you."

She pulled his head towards hers to kiss him quickly, and when she pulled away, Oz smiled a loose, lazy smile at her, murmuring, "That's what I was going to say."

Willow's giggle was cut off by a yawn, and she flopped back onto her back with a sigh. "I'm kinda sleepy," she admitted sheepishly.

"Makes sense. It's almost 5. You should get some sleep, Will."

"Probably," Willow agreed, tugging her sheets out from under her.

"Night, Willow," Oz murmured, standing up and pressing a kiss against her forehead.

"You don't have to leave," she whispered, blushing. "It's late. You could just sleep here, with me."

"Are you sure? I don't wanna impose."

"Yes, I'm sure, Oz," Willow smiled through her blush, turning the covers aside to make room for him beside her. "I don't really want to be alone right now."

"Okay."

Willow shifted until she was comfortable, arranging the covers and blankets around her like a nest. She leaned her head against Oz's shoulder, slipping an arm across him, and smiled in the dark when she felt his arms wrap themselves around her.

"You know," Willow whispered near Oz's ear, "I always thought I'd go somewhere far away for college, somewhere exciting."

"The Hellmouth isn't exciting enough for you?"

"Somewhere exciting in a different way. Somewhere exciting in a lots of history and pretty architecture and different, non-demonic animals sort of way, I mean."

"Sounds nice."

"Yeah, it does," Willow sighed wistfully. "I wonder what the rest of the world is like."

"We'll see it," Oz told her, his voice promising her evenings in London and mornings in Istanbul, and hours and hours going from city to city, just to see all of the little places in between.

"I'd like that," Willow murmured sleepily. "Tomorrow, maybe."

"Maybe." Oz leaned over to kiss her goodnight, whispering "Sleep well, Willow. I love you."

"Mmm, love you too," Willow breathed as she fell asleep.

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Oz was gone when Willow woke up and, for a minute, she wondered if the whole night before had been a dizzy fever dream, terrifying and vivid and false. But there was an Oz-shaped indentation in the bed beside her and a note on the pillow, so chances were good that all of her memories of the night before were real. The note (_Morning, Will. Had to run out to pick something up, but I should be back before you wake up. I love you. Oz._) was, unsurprisingly, unspecific, so Willow pulled on her bathrobe and monkey slippers and ventured downstairs to wait for Oz.

She found him in the dining room, setting the room table with her family's old German table settings, as The Beatles played softly in the background. He'd set up a little model of a pyramid in between the two steaming mugs and plates, which were filled with rice, crepes, and a moist looking orange fruit, and he'd hung a world map on the empty dining room wall.

"Oz?" Willow called, startling her boyfriend as he tucked a spoon beside the second plate. "What's all this?"

"Last night, you said you wanted to see the world. I can't take you everywhere you want to go just yet, but I thought I could bring some of it here for you."

"Really?" Willow smiled at him, grabbing him in a tight hug when he nodded yes. "Oz, this is so sweet, thank you!"

Oz gave her a kiss on the cheek before pulling back and murmuring, "You don't need to thank me."

"I love you," Willow said instead, finally breaking away from Oz to take a seat at the table. "Okay," she grinned excitedly, "the crepes are French, the rice is Japanese, and the tea is from-"

"India. It's herbal."

"India, right. But I don't recognize the fruit. I don't think I've ever seen it before." Willow speared a piece of the orange fruit on her fork, raising it to her face to peer at it curiously.

"Try it," Oz suggested, watching fondly as Willow examined the fruit. "It's papaya," he continued as Willow took a bite. "I'm told it's from Central America and Mexico, which makes it a little odd that we've never had it before, living in California and all.

"How do you like it?" he asked once she'd swallowed a piece, waiting to try his first piece until after Willow had gotten to taste it.

"I like it," Willow decided, peering at another piece of papaya curiously. "It's nice!" She ate another piece and, securing a third piece on her fork and extending it toward Oz, she smiled, "You have to try it, Oz."

Oz leaned across the table to kiss Willow, tasting lingering papaya juice on her tongue. "You're right," Oz responded, smiling crookedly at his girlfriend. "Very nice."

fin.

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A/N: Reviews are love! They help me become a better writer, so that you have better fic to read!

Next weeks' prompt: **radius**


	2. Sounds and Logic

Sounds and Logic

Prompt: Week 349- Radius

Summary: Willow and Oz teach each other to dance. Set somewhere between IOHEFY and Becoming in the end of Season 2, whenever Oz's Senior Prom would've taken place.

A/N: This started out fluff, but ended up as something akin to character introspection, looking at Willow and Oz as characters, and how they complement each other. This story assumes that Oz went to his Senior Prom the first time around, and that he took Willow as his date.

Disclaimer: I don't own Oz or Willow or any associated properties mentioned in this unnoficial, not for profit fanwork.

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Willow felt foolish and self-conscious when she knocked on Oz's door, wringing her hands the way she would squeeze water from a dishcloth. This was a bad idea, really bad, and hopefully Oz wasn't home, so that way he would never know that she came and he wouldn't ask why. But, just then, Oz opened the door in a ratty UC Berkely t-shirt and boxers, blinking as if he was seeing daylight for the first time in years, and all of a sudden, Willow had something new to feel flustered and shy about.

"Will?" Oz blinked sleepily, running a lazy hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "What're you doing here this early? Is something wrong?"

"Oz, it's almost noon," Willow laughed. "Nothing's wrong."

"Is it? Already?" Oz asked, nodding in understanding when Willow held up her wristwatch for him to read. "So it is."

"Can I come in?" Willow asked in a rush, forcing her words out as quickly as they would come. "I want to ask you something."

"You're always welcome here," Oz told her, stepping back out of the doorway and waving her through, in lieu of inviting her in. He'd only known about vampires for a few months, but he learned quickly.

"What's up, baby?" Oz asked after he ran upstairs to pull on pants and brush his teeth. He pulled Willow close for the good morning kiss he'd postponed on the grounds of unsatisfactory oral hygiene, then walked over to his sofa, smiling at Willow when she sat down beside him.

"So, Senior Prom is, well it's coming. And, you asked me! Which is nice!" Willow babbled, quickly losing her control over her speech. "I'm glad you asked me, even though I'm not a senior. I mean, I'm not glad just because I get to go to Prom, even though I am excited, by the way. I'm glad because I'm going to go with you. I like you and I like dating you and, if I was to go to Prom with anyone, I would want it to be you, hands down, so, yeah."

"I'm happy that you're going to Prom with me, too," Oz smiled, soothing a hand down her hair.

"Right," she blushed, taking a breath before confessing. "Except I don't know how to dance!"

"Okay."

"I asked Buffy to teach me, but, no offense to Buffy, but she's kind of an awful teacher in terms of active stuff. You know, because she's all Slayer-girl, so she doesn't really get how us normal people move. And, I didn't want to ask Cordelia because she'd totally make fun of me. And, well, I couldn't really ask Xander, could I?" As if cued, both teens cringed in unison, remembering the number of times the taller boy had been forcibly pushed off the dance floor at the Bronze.

"So you're asking me?" Oz questioned, the barest hint of a smile on his face. Willow nodded shyly, still feeling terribly embarrassed about having to ask her boyfriend for dance lessons. She was still so new to this dating thing, and even though Oz was making it easy and warm and simple, Willow still got fussed over the little details of their relationship. "Confession: I can't dance either."

"But you're musical, Oz! You play music, which is a lot like dancing to music, since they both have that close connection to the music, and all."

"So you'd think, but not so much. I'm much better off hiding behind my guitar than dancing."

"Oh," Willow said, trying bravely to keep the disappointment off her face.

"Why don't we try and figure it out together?" Oz suggested, raising his eyebrows just a tad and smiling tentatively.

"Okay," Willow agreed after a moment of thought, a grin breaking out across her face as Oz grabbed her by the hands to pull her to her feet. "Let's learn to dance."

Quickly, they pushed the living room furniture against the walls to create a makeshift dance floor and Oz slipped a CD into the large stereo in the corner. The easy part done, they came together in the center of the room.

"Just do what feels right, I guess," Oz shrugged as they awkwardly tried to place their hands, brushing fingers quietly along waistlines and collarbones and blushing at the accidental touches. Finding what "felt right," Willow quickly discovered, was much harder than advertised, because she felt awkward and silly and out of place, trying to dance with this boy in his living room. She nervously second guessed each move she made, from placing a hand on Oz's shoulder to taking even the slightest of steps. But, she was determined to do this right, so she kept at it, wishing she felt as comfortable as Oz seemed.

"Is this right?" Willow asked anxiously once she'd settled one hand on Oz's shoulder and clasped the other in his, poised nervously on the edge of a misstep. Willow was accustomed to perfectionism, familiar with ruler-straight lines circles with equal radii and consistent circumferences, but this was terrifying in its capacity for mistakes. Dancing was difficult because each step was like solving a problem, one which had nothing but variables, and because each step depended on your partner, who was the biggest variable of all. Willow wasn't accustomed to this type of problem, but she wanted to solve it, all the same.

"Feels right," Oz nodded and cocked to the side, listening for the music, Willow realized. "Waltzes have three steps, but that's all I know about them. Want to give it a shot?"

"That's not an awful lot to go on," Willow answered uncertainly, imagining just how many sets of three steps it would take before she tripped them both up.

With no warning at all, Oz began to move, taking a step backwards and pulling Willow along with him, letting his body move as the words did. Oz looked focused on the music, letting the flow of the music dictate his moves like a current. They were listening to the same gentle song, but Willow couldn't hear what Oz did, couldn't feel the same pull that he seemed to, couldn't find cues or meanings or directions in the notes. What Willow could find was a pattern in their footsteps, far simpler than she had anticipated, and, as long as she knew what direction Oz would next flow, she could follow his lead with ease. Of course, Oz was nothing short of unpredictable, and following his lead could be like guessing the next number in a sequence with an ever-shifting rate of change, but that was the challenge, keeping up with the pattern.

"It's like math," Willow grinned excitedly as they spun around the living room. "Everything is sequential, the length of your step, the direction, the timing. It's all about ratios!"

"I always thought it was about the music," Oz murmured slowly, looking at her thoughtfully. "About finding a beat and feeling which way to follow it."

"Well, sure," Willow babbled on happily, having captured the essence of this dancing thing as easily as she would catch a firefly. "But music's all about math too, isn't it? I read a book last month about music theory, because, well," she blushed, "I wanted to know more about the songs you write, but music is all about patterns. The way you arrange notes and chord progressions, the way you count measures and change time signatures. It's all math, lyrics set to numbers."

"I'm not so sure," Oz answered, voice steady and weighty with logic. "Music's not just math, it's expression. It's about feeling. It's the dynamics and articulation that makes music, otherwise, it's just a bunch of rhythmic sounds."

Oz released Willow's waist and lifted their joined hands in the air, holding them above her head and quietly urging her to spin. She turned, flighty as a breeze, spinning around their joined hands like an axis, but she caught her foot on Oz's and nearly fell.

"Steady," he soothed, recovering and falling back into the dance, as naturally as breathing. Willow blushed hotly, embarrassed by her miscalculation, even if Oz didn't seem to care.

"Try again?" Oz asked and Willow nodded fiercely, determined to prove to them both that she could solve this newest problem.

She was a circle, Willow decided, with one foot as a focus, while the other drew a circumference around it. The trick was the radius, Willow realized with a rush of satisfaction, because the radius changed everything about a circle. If she drew her foot in closer as she spun on her axis, if she kept the radius short, forced the area to remain small, then she could plot her turn where she chose and completely avoid intersection the line between Oz's feet.

This time as she spun under Oz's raised arm, her spin was tight and measured, and Willow cheered as she turned from her spin into her next step. Oz smiled at her as they danced on, and the fond look on his face made her feel just as pleasantly warm as her success had.

The song ended and a new one began, but instead of standing still, Oz took a step closer to Willow and wound both arms around her waist. "As much as I like waltzing with you," Oz whispered slowly in her ear, "I think maybe we'd be the only ones waltzing at Prom."

"Oh," Willow shivered, his warm breath on her ear making her spine feel loose and tingly. "Then how should we dance at Prom?"

"Like this," Oz whispered, a slow smile curling its way across his face like honey. Willow slipped her arms around his neck the way she had watched people dance at the Bronze, from far away at lonely tables. It felt _right_ in the way that coloring pictures of leaves green and writing her own name across pieces of paper felt _right._ It seemed as if she had been waiting a very long time to dance with Oz in his empty house, to wrap her arms tight around his neck so they could learn how their bodies fit together like a ripped piece of paper, from knee to neck. Willow dropped her head against his shoulder, because the curve of his neck into his shoulder was just the right shape to nestle her head, because they fit together in ways she'd never noticed before.

"This isn't so hard," Willow whispered into Oz's ear, feeling the shiver roll down his spine as her lips grazed his ear, and smiled secretly against his shoulder. This was the best kind of dance, Willow decided, tucked against Oz as if their bodies had been shaped to fit against each other, swaying in time to the numbered beats of the new song. Willow felt nearly giddy with a silly, delirious sort of happy, holding close to Oz. Something must have gone right for her to have found him, because they worked just right in the funniest, loveliest sort of way. He rationally told her how to feel music while she exclaimed about logic and reason and rationality, and how funny was it that their own silly, personal dichotomies would match and contradict in that way, that somehow they would balance out the funny little things about each other. There must be some variable, some way of determining the probability of finding, out of all the humans in the world and in America and in California, somebody who fit her as seamlessly as Oz did, Willow mused, wrapped around Oz. But maybe Oz was onto something with all his talk about feeling things out. Right here, tucked against Oz's chest as his body fit perfectly against hers, everything felt right, as if all the pieces of a puzzle were lined up perfectly, and that was enough.

fin.

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A/N: Sorry this is late! I was out of town with no access to a computer all week, and this is the first chance I had to post. Don't worry- weekly updates will continue as promised!

Reviews are always appreciated!


	3. In Which Willow is Certain (Hogwarts AU)

In Which Willow is Certain About Quite a Number of Things

Prompt: Week 350- sarcasm

Summary: Willow is absolutely certain that Oz is secretly a werewolf and that, because of this, he is in certain danger, so she decides that it up to her (with back up from Spike) to save him. Hogwarts AU.

A/N: Hogwarts AU, so excuse any dialogue weirdness, as I intended to write all the characters as if they had been born and raised British, instead of Californian.

Disclaimer: I don't own Oz or Willow or any associated properties mentioned in this unnoficial, not for profit fanwork.

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It had been a routine for five years and two months now, ever since they met as newly sorted Ravenclaws, that each morning, when Willow came down the stairs to the Ravenclaw common room, she would find Oz sitting on a couch reading, waiting to walk to breakfast with her. This morning, just like clockwork, Oz was waiting for her on the wide blue couch by the window, but as Willow rushed down the stairs, she quickly realized something was off about him. He was slumped against the back of the couch, his face was ghostly pale as he stared listlessly at a faded portrait of Adalbert Waffling, who was beginning to eye Oz with some concern as well.

"Oz, are you feeling alright?" Willow asked him in place of a greeting as she approached. Willow sometimes worried that Oz didn't take proper care of himself, so she worried about Oz for him. She really thought that somebody ought to, and since she was his best friend, she was entirely certain the duty fell on her.

"Morning, Willow," he smiled half-heartedly, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"Are you sure?" Willow fretted, reaching out to feel Oz's forehead. It was warm, incredibly so, as if his skin had been wrapped around a cauldron or a fireplace. "Oz, I'm serious! You ought to go to the Infirmary. You really don't look too good."

"Relax, Will. I didn't sleep well last night, that's all."

"If you're sure..."

"I am," Oz smiled and started tugging her by the hand to the doorway to the Ravenclaw Common Room. Even Oz's hand was uncommonly warm, but Willow benched her concern to be reviewed at a later date. She blushed at the feel of his hand laced around hers, reminding herself that they were best friends and this was the sort of harmless, affectionate gesture exchanged between friends, but she couldn't dampen the giddy, excited squirm in the base of her stomach. Willow liked holding Oz's hand in hers, and she thought that maybe it would be nice to hold Oz's hand as something more than just friends, but she was far too terrified of ruining their friendship to say anything. It was far better to have Oz as her best friend than to lose him over unrequited affections.

"Wanna watch Quidditch practice after classes today?" Willow asked, in place of all of the things she wished she was brave enough to ask him. "Wesley told me that Dawn Summers, our new Chaser, is really good."

"I don't think I can," Oz shrugged apologetically, not offering any more information.

"Well, alright." That was curious, Willow reflected as they walked down a slowly moving staircase to the Great Hall. Oz had been inexplicably busy the night before too, leaving her to study in the library all by herself. There were only so many things to do in the evening at Hogwarts, and there was absolutely nothing to do that they hadn't done together in the past. Oz had no reason to be avoiding her unless something was wrong and he didn't want her to know.

They entered through the gaping wooden doors of the Great Hall and slipped into the teeming, shouting mass of students, congregated around House tables and slipping through the empty places in the Hall.

Almost immediately, Buffy caught Willow's eye from the Gryffindor table, waving her arm like a windmill and grinning widely. She was Willow's best friend after Oz, but Willow didn't always get Buffy, who was far more interested in captaining the Gryffindor Quidditch team than keeping up with her studies, in the way that she didn't understand most of Gryffindor House. Buffy had an excited, giddy look on her face, almost as bright as her smile had been when caught the Golden Snitch in last years Quidditch Cup, one that almost definitely meant Buffy wanted to talk about Spike. It was unusual for a Gryffindor and a Slytherin to date, but Buffy and Spike had always been unusual, so Willow supposed it made an odd sort of sense.

"I'll save you a seat," Oz said, nodding at Buffy, and disappeared into the crowd. Wondering what on Earth could be wrong with him, Willow watched him weave around a crowd of giggling Second Year Hufflepuffs until he was hidden from view, and then she turned to find Buffy.

Ravenclaw had Transfiguration with Gryffindor that morning, so Buffy walked to class along with Willow and Oz. It was good, because Buffy's happiness now that she and Spike had decided to make things official between them was infectious, so much that Willow couldn't stop grinning the entire walk to class, and even Oz cracked a smile. It was less good, though, because Willow didn't get the chance to discover just what exactly was eating at Oz or to see if his fever had gotten any better. He absolutely hated making a fuss, and, as long as Buffy was there, he would completely refuse to admit there might be a problem, much less confess what that problem was. And talking to Oz in class was not even remotely a possibility, as Professor Rayne had the tendency to transfigure misbehaving students into whatever animal struck his fancy. On Tuesday, he had turned Freddy Iverson into a marmoset for doing his Divination assignment instead of taking notes, and Willow had no desire to discover first-hand what animal Professor Rayne was feeling fond of today.

"Open your books to page 493," Professor Rayne announced as strolled into his classroom and perched on the edge of his desk. "I've got quite the treat for you lot, today."

It turned out that Professor Rayne's treat was "Personal Transformations: Metamorphagi, Animagi, and Lycanthropes." Willow turned to nudge Oz, thinking that, as a metamorphagus, he had quite the edge on their classmates, just in time to see him stiffen like a startled rabbit, staring at Professor Rayne as if their professor was a hunting dog. The professor winked at Oz, giving him a sharp edged smile that reeked of chaos and madness, and then began class in a whirl of motion, staring all the students down equally, as if he'd never taken the time to single Oz out.

Professor Rayne was nothing if not deliberate. He was unpredictable and quixotic and had an uncanny predilection for chaos (like that time he turned half of the chairs in the Great Hall into miniature horses, for no reason other than proving to the students that he was not to be trifled with), but he was also calculated and very, very precise. For a man who liked bedlam as much as he did, he certainly took great pains to be in control. Professor Rayne was not one to waste gestures or to do anything without a motive, an ulterior motive, and a cleverly hidden plan that would undoubtedly result in further pandemonium. So, it followed that his blatant wink to Oz, one that Willow saw clearly, as if the professor had meant her to, was something altogether more sinister or important than a simple acknowledgement that Oz was a metamorphagus. He had no reason to reference that only in a wink; after five years of changing his hair color weekly, their fellow students had grown accustomed to Oz shifting his appearance at will. Willow would bet a dozen bronze Knuts that wink had some meaning that she wasn't privy to.

That, of course, begged the question, what did Professor Rayne know about Oz that Willow didn't? And just why did that make Oz so uncomfortable? As Professor Rayne paced in front of his desk, pointing at the image conjured from the tip of his wand of a wizard turning into a wolf, Oz sat rigidly beside her, hands as still as if he'd been petrified, instead of taking notes like the rest of the class.

"And now, class, which one of you little scourges can tell me the difference between an animagus wolf and a werewolf?" Professor Rayne called, sounding all too gleeful at the chance to humiliate a student. "Mister Osbourne, perhaps?"

"Animagi get the choice to turn," Oz answered after a pause, and his voice was as calm as it always was, but Willow almost thought she could hear an undercurrent of anger, underlining his words like a riptide. "Werewolves don't."

"Very good, Mr. Osbourne," Professor Rayne answered in that same taunting tone, before turning to one of the Gryffindor Prefects and barking, "Ms. Chase, another difference, if you will?"

Willow stopped listening, staring fixedly at Oz instead. He didn't notice, his eyes locked on the corner of Professor Rayne's desk, glassy and unfocused as if he was looking through the desk to see something hidden from her. Oz was keeping secrets from her, that much was obvious, but was he really hiding _this_ from her? This was terrifying and nonsensical and, really, the only thing that made actual, logical sense. Lycanthropy was the only secret she could imagine, because it made perfect sense (disappearing for two—three if he disappeared tomorrow night, as well—nights in a row, acting moodier and quieter than usual, being unusually tired and running an inhuman fever), but it also made no sense at all, because, after five years of friendship, wouldn't she have noticed something before now?

And then, with the ease of the _alohamora _charm, everything slid into place. Tonight really was the full moon (and, that reminded her, she needed to finish that 11 centimeter scroll for Astronomy on Friday) and Oz had been sick like this just one month ago, and, over the summer, he had mentioned that he had been bitten (by his cousin, maybe, or perhaps by a wild dog) in one of the letters he sent to her by way of his barn owl, Johann (short for Sebastian Johann Bach, he told her, a composer his Muggle father loved). Oz was a werewolf.

And Professor Rayne knew, and he wanted Oz to be sure that he knew. Professor Rayne loved things that were out of control, things like werewolves, and he looked far too gleeful at Oz's discomfort for him to not have some mischief in store. Professor Rayne was planning something, and that was even scarier than her best friend possibly being a werewolf, because Oz could be in trouble without even realizing it.

So, Willow decided, she was just going to have to save him.

"Spike?" Willow called a little uncertainly, capturing the Slytherin's attention. He was sitting in a deserted corner of the courtyard, arguing with Charles Gunn. There was shouting and hand waving and cursing, and Willow was reasonably sure she had just heard Spike threaten to do something anatomically implausible to Gunn with a quaffle and beater's bat, so Willow assumed that they were arguing about the upcoming Gryffindor v. Slytherin Quidditch game. Oz's safety took certain priority over Quidditch in Willow's mind, so she had no qualms about yelling, with a little more urgency, "Spike!"

"Can't you see I'm in the middle of a bloody argument, here?!" Spike shouted and turned on the ball of his foot, his robe swirling around him in a manner that seemed unfairly dramatic, to face Willow. "Oh, uh, sorry, Red," he muttered, abashed at the sight of his girlfriend's best friend. "Something I can do you for?"

Willow wasn't always entirely sure that she liked Spike, but they were friends, more or less. She (mostly) trusted him, and she certainly had to admit that she needed his help right now. The older boy had once intimidated her, just a bit, with his bleached hair, blatant disregard for everything her shiny, new Prefect badge stood for, and the rumors of dark magic that clung to him like a shroud; still, he was almost definitely the only one in this school who could help her, who actually _would_ help her. "Yes," Willow announced, squaring her shoulders and looking the Seventh Year Slytherin in the face. "There really is."

Willow peeked at Gunn, trying to think of a polite way to ask him to leave, and he quickly noticed. "Right, then. See you around, Willow," Gunn smiled, giving her a nod, and walked off, shouting, "And I'll see you on the pitch on Sunday, Pratt!"

"You better bloody believe it, wanker!" Spike shouted at Gunn's retreating back. "Right, sorry, Red. You were saying?"

"I need your help," Willow rushed, shooting her words at him rapid-fire to communicate just how important what she was saying was. "I think Oz is in trouble!"

"And what exactly do you want me to do about that?"

"He's disappearing in the evenings and he's running a fever and I think that something's wrong, but he won't tell me and I'm really starting to worry that he's in some sort of danger!"

"He's ditching you at night?" Spike raised an eyebrow at her, looking infuriatingly skeptical. "Hate to tell you, luv, but have you thought that maybe your lover boy there's found himself a new girl?"

"He's not my lover boy!" Willow exclaimed, flushing a bright crimson, darker than Gryffindor banners. "And, no! Oz hasn't 'found himself a girl!' This is serious!

"Besides!" Willow continued on, not noticing that Spike had tried to respond. "I wouldn't even care if Oz _did _have a girlfriend! We're friends, _best friends,_ and that's all, honest! So, he's certainly _not _my 'lover boy,' I'll have you know! Absolutely not!" She stomped her foot and crossed her arms in a show of disapproval, and willed herself to believe her own words. They were just friends, after all, and things were best left that way.

"Right," Spike smirked, "You're just friends."

"Completely!"

"And I believe you," Spike deadpanned. "Honest."

"Well, thank you for that, Mr. Sarcasm! But that is entirely _not _the topic we were discussing, so, if we could just get back to that…"

"So, get back to it, then. How do you think your boy's in trouble?"

Willow visibly hesitated, biting her lip in an attempt to bring order to her thoughts. "Spike," she began slowly, "if I tell you something, something that's really important, can I trust you to keep it a secret?"

"I suppose that depends on the secret," Spike answered slowly, absently twirling his wand between the fingers of his right hand. "But, I doubt that you'll have any secrets that I'll feel the pressing urge to share. So, sure. You can trust me."

"That's not really reassuring," Willow hedged, but remembered that Professor Rayne probably had some incredibly sinister plans for Oz, and that Spike really was the best person to help her. "But, you promise not to tell?"

"Yeah, pet. I promise."

"If you tell anybody, I'll do something really nasty, okay?" Willow threatened, leveling her best menacing glare at him, which in all honesty was more of an attempt at menace than an actual success. "I'll hex you blind or I'll set your hair on fire or I'll transfigure your broom into a Bowtruckle! Or, oh, this is better! I'll tell Buffy that you betrayed me _and _Oz and I'll let you deal with angry, defending-her-friends Buffy!"

"I already promised, didn't I?" Spike winced, no doubt imagining the pain his girlfriend would have in store for him if he betrayed her friends.

"I think Professor Rayne is planning something, and I think Oz is in danger because there's a chance that he might secretly a werewolf! And, I'm 100% sure…okay, well, I'm fairly certain that Professor Rayne knows and that he's up to something, because Professor Rayne is _always _up to something. And he's usually harmless, but, Spike, I'm worried that this time he won't be so harmless!" Willow paused to gasp for breath, having momentarily exhausted her supply of words.

"That's…not what I was expecting, I'll admit," Spike replied, twirling his wand just a little bit faster. "You're sure Rayne's plotting something?"

"Well, no," Willow admitted, "but if he is, Oz won't be in any condition to protect himself, not once he takes the Wolfsbane Potion. I need to make sure he'll be okay."

"And if Rayne is planning something?" Spike questioned, looking the most concerned Willow had ever seen him look. "You're gonna take him on yourself, pet?"

"If I have to," Willow said bravely, trying to feel just as courageous as her words made her sound. She was so scared at the idea of standing up against a professor that the bones in her legs were starting to feel watery, as if she'd been hit with the Jelly Legs Jinx, but the thought of Oz getting hurt was enough to keep her upright. "Somebody needs to keep Oz safe."

"Should've been a bloody Gryffindor, pet," Spike chuckled, "You're too noble for your own damn good."

"Well, are you going to help me, then?"

"Meet me here an hour before sundown. We'll find your boy."

"Are you sure this is the best idea?" Willow hissed for the sixteenth time so far, as Spike peered around a corner and beckoned her forward. "I'm serious, Spike! We're breaking a lot of rules right now. And I'm a _Prefect! _I can't break rules!"

"Do you want to find your boy or not?" Spike snapped back, grabbing her by the wrist and tugging her along as he slipped down a corridor. He stopped when they reached a misshapen statue of a humpbacked witch (Willow couldn't remember the witch's name; she blamed the high stress of her current situation) and pulled out his map again. Willow had protested when she first saw it, speckled with footprints of the castle's occupants, crawling around the crackling sepia parchment of the map like a colony of ants. It was almost certainly on the list of magical artifacts students were forbidden from having and, as a prefect, she felt obligated to report it. She squelched that urge rather quickly, once she realized that this map was her key to finding and protecting Oz. Some times, she acknowledged, there were things more important than following rules.

"What the hell does he think he's doing?" Spike muttered crossly, staring intently at the map while Willow tried to peek over his shoulder. "Well, I'll be damned!"

"What? Spike, what's going on?" Willow tugged the map out of his hands, searching the magical map for a sign of Oz. It was difficult to locate anybody in the tumultuous mass of dots that filled the paper halls of Hogwarts, each jostling dot obscuring the ones around it. After a moment of searching, she found Oz's. His was the only dot outside of the castle and the only dot moving away from the castle as far as it could.

"Look," Spike breathed, tracing a path from the Whomping Willow, it's branches rustling ominously even on the map, to the route Oz's dot seemed to be following. "There's a secret passage here, love. Through the Whomping Willow, see?"

"Oh," the witch gulped. "That's not very safe, is it?"

"I suppose it's not," Spike agreed, checking the map once more to insure that their path to the castle doors was clear. "Let's go."

It turned out that the Whomping Willow was surprisingly safe, much to the delight of both students, frozen in place as if it were a regular tree. Less to her delight, Willow discovered, as a rabbit raced out of it, that the passage was no more than a gap between the roots and the base of the tree. She wasn't entirely sure what she had been expecting a secret passageway in a tree to look like, but she would have liked it if this passage was a bit bigger. And cleaner.

Once inside, the passageway wasn't nearly so bad, much bigger and with far less dirt than she had expected. "_Lumos,_" Willow whispered once they'd both come to their feet, and held her wand to the map. Oz's dot had stopped moving some distance away from where their two dots stood, huddled just beside the Whomping Willow. Now, it sat still in the Shrieking Shack.

"That's the Shrieking Shack," Willow pointed, staring at Oz's dot.

"Good thing you pointed that out, pet. I hadn't noticed that, myself."

"Okay, your sarcasm? Not appreciated!" Willow snapped, stalking off down the tunnel. She usually didn't have a problem with sarcasm (because, really, she wouldn't have survived five years of Oz if she couldn't deal with that type of humour), but her nerves were wound as tightly as a spiral staircase, her thumping heart echoing in her ears.

"Well, I'll be sure not to use it then," Spike snapped back. "Can't imagine anything worse than making you testy."

Willow picked up her pace with a huff and decidedly ignored the blonde wizard at her tail. Without the distraction of her conversation with Spike, Willow was left only with terrified thoughts of Oz, stuck in a werewolf form and at the mercy of Professor Rayne and other, even more sinister, figures. The idea that she might be too late, that Oz could be in trouble, or hurt, or even worse, right now, sped her steps until she was practically running.

The race down the narrow, earthen hallway felt like just a handful of heartbeats and it felt like an entire winter, all at once, but finally, Willow reached a door, old and sturdy in its frame. She blindly reached for it, still holding her brightly lit wand in her hand like a beacon, not stopping to consider what might be on the other side.

"Steady, love," Spike spoke up quietly from behind her. "Let's be careful, alright?"

Willow nodded and whispered "_Nox," _extinguishing the light of her wand, and slipped the door open cautiously, imagining that it was made of brittle glass. There was nothing but a hollow looking darkness through the gaping doorway, with the faint outlines of walls and further doorways peeking through the gloom. Emboldened, Willow crept in.

"_Lumos,_" she whispered once more, lining the inside of the shack with pale, golden light. The main room was musty and unkempt, clearly forgotten and left behind, with faded, peeling wallpaper and dust practically ground into the floorboards. Willow didn't stop to take in the sights, but, instead, rushed from room to room, searching for Oz.

Finally, she found the form of a wolf, its body distorted and stretched grotesquely so as not to truly resemble either wolf or man but some mystical amalgamation of the two. The werewolf looked up as Willow skidded into an upstairs bedroom, blinking sleepily at her from his ramshackle den of blankets on an ancient four poster bed, before giving a sad sounding whine and laying his head back down. Slowly, Willow approached the bed, provoking no response from the Oz-wolf as he watched her approach. She sat beside him cautiously, and leaned against the headboard. Oz was safe and, sure, he was a werewolf, but that was in no way the weirdest thing that had happened to either of them so far that year.

"Spike, I found him" she called quietly, so as not to disturb the wolf. The Slytherin poked his head around the door, spotted her beside the wolf and smiled. "He's alright," Willow sighed in relief, giving Spike a grin wide enough to split her face. "He's safe."

"Think I'll stay downstairs, just in case something does happen. Alright?" Spike asked, already backing out of the doorway.

"Okay," Willow smiled, combing her fingers through Oz's fur. "And, Spike?" she called again, waiting until she could see him through the door again. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," the blonde shrugged, and vanished downstairs.

Oz shifted to lay his head in her lap, and Willow smiled and, clutching her wand, she tiredly leaned back against the headboard. Oz was safe and not out meeting other girls (and, now that she knew that he really wasn't, Willow could admit, just within the safety of her own mind, that the idea of Oz having a secret girlfriend really had been a huge concern), and Professor Rayne wasn't here hunting him or anything, and everything was absolutely alright. She shifted around on the blankets, threading one hand through the fur between Oz's ears, the other holding tight to her wand, in case she needed to defend him. Slowly, Willow fell asleep under the warmth of werewolf Oz, telling herself an imaginary bedtime story about princesses who went on quests and fought dragons to save their handsome prince, instead of the other way around, so that they could ride off into the sunset together and live a mutually supportive and equal happily ever after. As she drifted off, Willow sleepily decided that she liked that sort of story much better, and that Oz really would make quite a nice handsome prince.

Willow woke up sore, unable to feel her legs, and completely disoriented. She was in a room she barely recognized, she was wearing yesterday's clothes, and Oz was asleep in her lap, completely naked.

"Good morning, Oz," she said quietly as she threw a blanket over him, really just wanting to cut right to the chase. It was entirely possible that Oz wouldn't be at all pleased to see her here, an outcome that she really hadn't considered in her panic the previous day. She probably should have foreseen that, but she had been so busy panicking and worrying that Oz wouldn't survive the full moon that she hadn't considered what might happen in the event that he wasn't in harms way.

"Willow?" he murmured, rolling onto his back to look up at her. "What're you doing in here?"

"We're in the Shrieking Shack, Oz," Willow murmured, absently running a hand along his hair. And, just like that, Oz suddenly understood exactly what was happening. He sat up with a start, jumping back away from her with a quickness that belied just how recently he had been asleep.

"You can't be here," Oz insisted, shaking his head in disbelief and taking a few steps further away. "Will, you've got to go."

"Relax, Oz," Willow soothed standing up to look at him. "It's morning. The moon's set."

Oz didn't say anything, but his eyes widened slightly in horror and his almost nonexistent expression of anguish, just a suggestion of pain in the lines of his forehead and mouth, was more than able to communicate just how deeply he had feared Willow discovering that he was a werewolf.

"I wish you would've told me," Willow smiled weakly at the wizard, trying to lighten the pain in his eyes. "You know you can tell me anything, Oz, don't you?"

"This was different," Oz disagreed hoarsely, clutching the blanket around his waist so tightly that his knuckles were white, stark against the grey wool.

"I don't think so. I don't care about lycanthropy or full moons or the Shrieking Shack, Oz. I just care about you."

"I'm a monster now, Will. Maybe it's best if you don't care about me." Oz met her eyes, his own firm with resolve. His eyes were dark with self-loathing, with the belief that he really was a monster, and it broke Willow's heart just a little to see him hurting so much. She'd wanted to protect him, and here she was causing him pain.

"Well, maybe I don't care about that," Willow snapped back, taking a step toward Oz. "I figured out you were a werewolf without you having to tell me, and I still cared about you enough to come out here looking for you, just to make sure that you were safe! I care about _you_, Oz, not about your lycanthropy."

"Will…"

"No," Willow cut him off, "you're going to let me finish saying what I have to say. You know, my first thought when I figured out what was going on with you was, 'what if somebody else finds out and tries to hurt Oz?' not 'what if Oz accidentally hurts me?' I was scared _for_ you, Oz, not _of_ you.

"So, don't tell me not to care about you, because that's not going to happen, mister." Willow took another step closer to Oz, closing the gap so that there was just a handbreadth of room between the two. "I was terrified that somebody would find you and hunt wolfy you down, so I came out here to find you. I snuck out of the castle all night to make sure you were alright, and I broke a bunch of rules, all for you! I'm sorry that you don't care about me enough to tell me when big things like _getting turned into a werewolf _happen to you, Oz, but don't expect me not to care. Because I do care. A lot."

Oz stared at her, something curious and new in his sea blue eyes, and then he cupped the back of her head in one hand and kissed her. Willow had never kissed a boy before, but she was almost completely sure that this was the best first kiss she could've ever experienced. Oz's lips were warm and soft and gentle on hers, and she didn't even notice that he tasted just the slightest bit like morning breath (just like she did) because she was so busy appreciating just how perfect of a kiss this was. "I care a lot about you too."

"Okay," Willow smiled, a little breathlessly. "Okay."

"I care, Willow. Really."

"Oz," Willow murmured in sudden apprehension, "Professor Rayne knows you're a werewolf."

"I know. All of the teachers do. Headmaster Giles is the one who set me up with this place."

"So does Spike," she added, locking her hands, which she'd dropped onto his shoulders as he kissed her, around his neck.

"Spike?"

"He helped me find you," Willow admitted with a blush. "But he promised to keep your secret!"

"What'd you threaten him with?" Oz asked, eyes sparkling with suppressed humor.

"That's ridiculous. I never threatened him!" Willow insisted, giggling sheepishly when Oz merely raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her. "I may have threatened to set Buffy on him…"

"And now it makes sense," Oz smirked. "Anything else you want to share?"

"Well," Willow blushed, looking down at her black uniform shoes next to Oz's bare feet, pale like the pinkish interior of a seashell. "I think I'd really like to kiss you again."

"I'd like that too," Oz replied, grinning as Willow pulled him into a second kiss.

And Willow would have smiled if she hadn't been so busy kissing Oz, because here she was, getting her fairytale ending. And maybe she hadn't gotten to slay any monsters, but she was going to save him from the fear and despair and anger that clung to him like a second skin. She was going to save him from anything he needed saving from, no matter what. Because that's just what you did, for people you care about.

fin.

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A/N: Reviews are always appreciated!

Next week's prompt: **parched**


	4. Holy, Holy, Holy (Wishverse AU)

Holy, Holy, Holy

Prompt: Week 351- parched

Summary: After Willow gets turned, Oz loses almost all faith, and when vampire Willow hunts him down, he loses the little he had left.

A/N: Wishverse AU, meant to give Oz and Willow some backstory. It's not stated, but Willow was sired by Xander in this particular telling. It's also worth noting that there's some religion based content, and that this is not indicative of my own beliefs or opinions, it's merely storytelling. Please don't take offence if this contradicts your own beliefs.

Warnings: This is really dark compared to the other stories so far, so be warned. This chapter is rated M, for profanity, torturesque violence, and sexual content.

Disclaimer: I don't own Oz or Willow or any associated properties mentioned in this unnoficial, not for profit fanwork.

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The day after Willow was turned, Oz went back to church for the first time in years, wanting to relearn how to hope. Willow was damned and he was damned and the whole of Sunnydale was damned as well, but only if there was a hell. Otherwise, they were just blips on a radar, just a few molecules in the great, grand whole of _everything_, and there was no worse fate waiting for them below. That was nearly unbearable, the idea that this was as bad as things could get. Oz held tight to the idea that they hadn't reached rock bottom, that they still had a few miles to go before they truly woke up in Hell, because as long as he had farther to fall, he still believed that he could keep climbing back up.

The Church preached about forgiveness, about begging atonement for what you had done. They sang "holy, holy, holy" and broke bread and closed their eyes. "Forgive us our trespasses," the pastor intoned, "And deliver us from evil," the congregation echoed, and Oz slipped out through the narthex, unnoticed. His trespass, his original sin, was not his own, he was dirty and unholy and broken by a curse he hadn't brought upon himself, and begging forgiveness for something he hadn't done wasn't Oz's idea of salvation.

Maybe religion wasn't made for monsters like him.

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever."

As he walked out, his cross hung heavy like a weight around his neck.

Willow liked to come to him in the dangerous hours of the morning, when it was still too dark for him to walk without fear, and when the weak, yellow sun crept towards the horizon, just waiting to burn her.

"Hey, lover," Willow breathed in his ear as she appeared behind him on the sidewalk before his parents' empty house, drifting close around his back like a plume of smoke. "Didja miss me?"

It had been one week after Oz fled from church like a thing possessed, one week since Willow had been turned into the monster behind him, the monster laughing softly in his ear and wrapping her cold, marble arm around his waist like a vise. She'd come to him every night but the night she rose, when Oz sat vigil by her grave, clutching a cross and a stake and thinking of the night he and his cross couldn't save her, thinking _if only, if only, if only. _

"It's not you I miss," Oz answered quietly and refused to acknowledge her any further, thinking of the feel of a stake in his sleeve and a heavy vial of holy water weighing down his pocket like a stone. His neck felt loose and light where a cross used to hang (the heavy silver cross she'd given him for Christmas, insisting that he'd already gotten her nine Hanukah presents, so the least she could do was get him one really nice Christmas present), but its absence wasn't as comforting now as it was when he had been running from God and all his saints.

"Really?" Willow asked innocently, her voice mimicking her former, human self, as she trailed her fingertips down his neck, making him shiver. "You think we're different, your Willow and me? Do you think a different girl crawled out of that grave, Oz?"

Oz shuddered as Willow released her grip on his waist to run her hand up his side and cross in front of him, wrapping her fingers around his shoulder and digging each digit into his flesh like a thumbscrew. He tried his best to ignore her, but Willow grabbed his chin in her hand and turned his head towards hers, catching his eyes with her feral, green gaze. He couldn't look away, absolutely frozen by the sight of her.

Willow bit her lip gently, green eyes wide and questioning as she stared at him, and for a second it was if she had never died. This was a monster here before him, one wearing Willow's face, and she wore it so well that Oz wanted to believe this was her. "Have I changed that much, sweetie?" Willow asked, voice questioning and a little unsure, the way she had once sounded.

It would be so easy to forget, to lean in the extra inch and take what she was so clearly offering, and Oz was so tempted. It had been a week since Willow had died, and he was no closer to fighting through the thick, heavy rage and grief and fury that had been clouding his entire world. More than anything, he wanted a break with that reality, a moment where he could play pretend that he'd never lost Willow. He wanted to forget that, without her, even breathing hurt, but not like this. Anything was better than this.

"Go to Hell," Oz growled, doing his best to push her away, but Willow just squeezed tighter on his shoulder and laughed at his attempts to break loose.

"Oh!" she squealed, lips curving into a gleeful smile that sent revolted shivers down Oz's spine. Willow smiled like a hangman, like an executioner waiting with bated, joyful breath to strike the killing blow. "Do you wanna play? Is that what you want, Oz?"

She smiled again, grin like a sickly crescent moon, and laughed low in her throat. "I don't need a full moon to make you my puppy."

With another manic laugh, Willow shoved Oz to the ground, dropping to her knees and straddling his chest. "Okay, puppy," she laughed, raking her fingernails down his chest to tear his shirt to shreds, "let's play!"

Oz reached up to shove her off, bucking his hips and thrashing his legs as if caught in the throes of a violent seizure, doing everything in his power to escape the monster living in Willow's body. Willow slammed a hand down on against the center of his chest, forcing his head back against the grass.

"I don't think I like it when you fight back, puppy," Willow scolded, digging the fingernails on his chest into his skin, tearing through his flesh as if he were woven from spare bits of tissue paper and straw. Blood rose to the surface as Willow slowly dragged her nails down his chest, tearing five stripes into his moon white skin. She leaned down to lap up his blood, dragging her cold tongue against his stomach and chest. Oz could feel her rough tongue pull at the jagged edges of his flesh, and he had never felt so fragile. "I think I'd much rather play with you when you're too weak to try and stop me. Doesn't that sound like fun, puppy?"

"Fuck you, Willow!" Oz spat, voice hissing with pain. He'd stopped struggling the moment she licked him, frozen in place in revulsion. Willow sat back up, licking her red stained lips slowly, savoring the last tastes of his blood.

"Somebody's an eager puppy!" Willow laughed gleefully, clapping her hands together once to clasp them under her chin. "But I think we'll save that for last, don't you think? First, I wanna see what you taste like, right from the source. I'm feeling absolutely parched."

Willow pinned one hand against his chest while the other turned his head to the side, exposing the pale length of his neck. She was being sloppy, starving and so close to blood, and left his arms free. The vial of holy water, a relic of a faith he no longer held, was heavy in his pocket, cold against the side of his leg, and Oz reached for it as slowly as he possibly could, trying not to attract Willow's attention. She didn't notice, intent on the pulse jumping in his neck, and Oz fished it out of his pocket (slowly, slowly) and quickly dragged his hand up to his side.

That movement, much faster and sharper, caught Willow's attention and she laughed again, cruel and biting and so unlike the way she used to laugh, when she saw the vial in his hand. Oz hated her laugh more than anything else about her, and he longed to splash his holy water right in her face, so he could laugh while her lips and tongue smoked and burned.

"On, c'mon, holy water?" Willow scoffed, "You don't believe in that any more than I do. You're not even wearing your cross!

"And you know why?" she whispered, drawing a teasing fingertip up and down over his neck. "Because there's no God for monsters like us. No one there to hear your prayers."

"Maybe," Oz acknowledged, "or maybe not."

He threw the vial, splashing water across her face and down her chest. Willow started screaming instantly, flying to her feet and wiping hurriedly at her face and eyes and neck, trying to brush the water from her skin before her flesh began to sizzle. Oz pushed up from the ground and ran, sprinting down the sidewalk and slamming the heavy wooden door behind him the moment he crossed his home's threshold. Outside, he could hear Willow continue to scream as he threw the deadbolt.

Oz still didn't believe in God, didn't believe in an Almighty, a great plan, or in much of anything at all. Giles told him that he had to believe in _something, _that there was some reason why when he held a cross it drove off demons instead of just being a pair of crossed sticks. Oz was willing to entertain the idea, although he didn't know what it was that he supposedly believed in, so when he and Larry grabbed weapon after weapon in preparation to storm the Master's factory, Oz grabbed a thick wooden cross and a vial of holy water, and he slipped his heavy silver cross around his neck.

In the factory, everything happened all at once, chaos coming to life in the screaming and running and dying of people to all sides of him. Oz didn't have time to wonder what it was he believed in, didn't have time to halfass a prayer to some unknown higher power, didn't have time to do anything but react, but run and stake and rescue and repeat.

But then he saw red hair and a sickly smile from across the room and suddenly he knew. There had to be a better world than this, Cordelia had said as much, and maybe there were hundreds of better worlds somewhere he would never go. And somewhere in the universe, in one of these hundreds of better worlds, Willow had to exist, happy and safe and alive. Willow was alive somewhere, and, even now, Oz believed in Willow.

"Willow, please forgive me," he murmured under his breath, in a low voice like a prayer, and he pushed the monster that had killed his Willow into a wooden stake.

"Because everything I do is for you."

fin.

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A/N: As always, I would love your feedback!


	5. Night Owls

Night Owls

Prompt: Week 352- Shameless

Summary: When ten year old Dawn won't accept her bedtime, babysitters Willow and Oz do whatever it takes to make her go to bed.

A/N: One of Willow's artificial memories of Dawn, set during what would've been Season 3. So, just imagine S3 with Dawn, and that's this ficlet's timeline.

Disclaimer: I don't own Oz or Willow or any associated properties mentioned in this unnoficial, not for profit fanwork.

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"Dawnie, bedtime means it's time for bed," Willow insisted, staring Dawn down while Oz leaned on the wall behind her. "Not that it's time to get out of bed and talk to us!"

Babysitting was supposed to be easy, Willow had been pretty sure, at least when the individual being babysat (which was a weird term, Willow supposed, seeing as Dawn was 10 years old and only very rarely infantile) liked you. But maybe that was the problem, that Dawn liked her and Oz, because instead of whining and being stubborn like she was with some babysitters, (and very rude on top of that, if Cordelia's account of her one night with Dawn was to be believed) Dawn had spent the entire night wedging herself between Willow and Oz and blinking up at the both of them as if they held the keys to universe. It had been sweet at first, but it was beginning to become a problem.

"But I'm not tired!" Dawn exclaimed, nodding earnestly at them both. "Can't you just tell me more about your band instead, Oz?"

"Sorry, kiddo," Oz shrugged, looking mildly apologetic and not at all like the stern enforcer that Willow needed him to be impersonating right now. They were trying to put Dawn to bed, and she was never going to stay in bed if Oz looked like he didn't care if she stayed up all night.

"But you guys are so cool! I was learning all sorts of things! And, besides, learning's important, right?"

"Of course learning's important, but so is sleeping, Dawnie," Willow reasoned tiredly, promising herself that she would be conveniently unavailable the next time Buffy asked her to babysit when she went patrolling. "And learning's good for daytime, but it's bedtime and that really, really means you need to go to bed! And you need to stay in bed, okay?"

"But!"

"Good night, Dawn," Oz cut in, taking Willow's hand and pulling her towards the doorway. "You need to sleep, not argue. We'll be downstairs." And just like that, without waiting to hear any further protests, Oz tugged Willow into the hallway and they crept down the stairs together.

Willow liked Dawn. She thought that Dawn was sweet and adorable and funny, in that innocent 10 year old sort of way, and Dawn loved the both of them (because Willow talked to her about cool things like NASA and American Indian Reservations and Sir Francis Drake, and because Oz treated her like he treated Buffy and Xander, like she was his friend, not his friend's kid sister), so the whole babysitting arrangement generally worked out pretty well for all three of them. Unfortunately, bedtime usually turned out to be much less successful.

"Do you think she'll come back down again?" Willow whispered as they settled together on the Summers' couch, leaning against each other with Willow's legs thrown across Oz's lap.

"Hard to say," Oz commented, toying with loose strands of Willow's hair. "She's persistent, but I think we're intimidating enough to scare her away."

"Yeah," she scoffed, "because our fantastic intimidation techniques worked so well the last two times she decided to come down here to talk to us instead of going to bed."

Oz just shrugged again, seemingly very involved in playing with her hair.

"Though," Willow added consideringly, "I guess our previous strategies of just asking nicely and of finding her at least 30 teddy bears don't really count as _fantastic intimidation techniques_. I doubt I'd be intimidated by anybody doing either of those things."

"A fair point," Oz acknowledged. "What are you proposing we do?"

"I don't know! We could, umm…"

"If only we'd thought to bring the tranq rifle," Oz sighed in faked regret, chuckling when Willow indignantly smacked his arm.

"Oz, that's awful! We can't tranquilize Dawn! You ought to feel incredibly ashamed of yourself!" she chided, trying to swallow her giggles the way she would swallow back water, and only half succeeding.

"I can't. I'm absolutely without shame," Oz smirked, loving the way her face lit up when she laughed.

"Uh huh," Willow giggled, bumping her shoulder affectionately against his. "Any other great ideas, then?"

"Well, we missed the window on drugging her food," Oz offered seriously, "but I bet we still have time to barricade her inside her room."

Willow opened her mouth to respond, but froze in place when she heard hesitant footsteps on the staircase. "Quick, you have to be bad cop this time!" Willow hissed under her breath, tugging on Oz's sleeve. "I'm no good at bad cop! I fold under that sort of pressure!"

"Better idea," Oz smirked mysteriously, and grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her hard. Willow froze in surprise, absolutely stymied by Oz's supposedly better idea, before she remembered Dawn's five minute diatribe on the last time Xander and Cordelia babysat her together and how gross they were and why dating was stupid and nasty. Willow smiled into the kiss and slipped one arm around Oz's neck, trailing her other hand along the hem of his t-shirt. There was almost nothing legal she and Oz could do that would drive Dawn off to bed any faster than this.

"Willow? Oz?" the youngest Summers girl's voice echoed down the stairway as she climbed down, hoping to stay up a little later with her babysitters. "Oh, ewww!" Dawn exclaimed as the caught sight of them. "Willow! Oz!"

The two teenagers continued on as if they hadn't heard her, pretending that she was still in bed. Sure enough, "That's so gross!" the ten year old cried in indignation, before turning to stomp back to her bedroom to escape the sight of kissing as quickly as she could, almost as if she'd stumbled upon Willow and Oz dismembering cats, instead.

"Uggh!" Dawn's irritation carried down through the staircase to her two babysitters, who pulled away from each other with matching smirks.

"I don't think she'll be getting out of bed again, tonight," Oz smiled, squeezing his girlfriend's hand.

"But, you never know," Willow nodded earnestly, trying her best not to blush. "So, just in case, maybe we should keep going, because Dawn might try to come back downstairs again."

"Right," Oz agreed. "We should. In the interest of responsible babysitting, of course."

"Oh, of course!" Willow grinned, "We've got to do it for the kids, you know?" Any response Oz might have made was lost when Willow slipped a hand around his neck to pull him into a kiss.

They didn't see Dawn again, for the rest of the night.

fin.

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A/N: Feedback is always loved and appreciated!


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